3-Ingredient Oven Baked Summer Dessert

This peach dump cake is golden and buttery on top, soft and jammy underneath, and made with just three Ingredients. Butter, peach pie filling, and dry yellow cake mix bake together with no stirring needed. Add vanilla ice cream while it’s warm and you’re going to love it.

Why You’ll Love It

• Just three ingredients — butter, peach pie filling, and yellow cake mix are all you need.
• No mixing required — layer everything in one casserole dish and do not stir.
• Golden, buttery topping — the butter works its way up as it bakes for crisp and tender bites.
• Warm, saucy peach filling — the pie filling bubbles into a soft, jammy layer underneath.

Ingredient Notes

You need salted butter here, two whole sticks, unwrapped and solid. Yes, solid. Yes, you put them right in the casserole dish. It feels a little reckless the first time, which is probably why I enjoy it. The salt in the butter gives the sweet peach filling some balance. Unsalted would work in a pinch, I suppose, but the recipe is built around salted butter, and I’m not going to pretend every substitution is equally marvelous just to be agreeable.

For the cake mix, use a standard yellow cake mix—around 15.25 ounces. This is not the moment to get cute with a pudding-in-the-mix version or some lemon thing. Yellow cake mix. Keep the peace.

And the peaches are canned peach pie filling, not canned peaches in juice. That distinction matters. Pie filling has the syrupy thickness that creates the soft layer underneath. Two 21-ounce cans. I like a filling with decent-sized peach slices, though they all vary a bit. One brand’s “slices” are another brand’s peach confetti. Such is life.

Ingredients

• 2 solid sticks salted butter, unwrapped—yes, all of it; this is dessert, not a wellness seminar
• 1 box yellow cake mix, about 15.25 ounces, straight from the box and kept dry
• 2 cans peach pie filling, 21 ounces each; use the regular pie filling, not plain canned peaches

Instructions

Preheat your Oven to 350°F. Put the two unwrapped sticks of salted butter right into a 9-by-13-inch oven-safe casserole dish. Slide the dish into the oven for about 3 to 5 minutes, just until the butter melts. Keep an eye on it. Butter goes from melted to browned to “why does my kitchen smell like an argument?” faster than you’d think.

Carefully remove the casserole dish from the oven. The melted butter will be hot and sloshy, so don’t carry it one-handed.

Spoon both cans of peach pie filling evenly over the melted butter. Spread it gently so the peaches cover the bottom of the dish in a mostly even layer. You don’t need to be fussy about this. A peach slice may wander off into a corner; let it live its life.

Sprinkle the dry yellow cake mix evenly over the peach filling. Try to cover the surface as completely as you can—but do not stir it. I know it looks odd. It looks like you have forgotten a step. You have not forgotten a step. The butter underneath works its way up as it bakes, and that’s what makes the topping turn golden and delicious.

If you notice a big patch of dry cake mix sitting there looking chalky and lonely, gently tilt the pan a little so some of the melted butter can reach it. Don’t go shaking the thing around like you’re mixing a martini. Just a small tilt. I’ve made the mistake of leaving large powdery patches, and while nobody refused dessert, I noticed.

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until the top is deeply golden and the peach filling is bubbling around the edges. My oven tends to run a little hot, so I start checking around 45 minutes. You want that top to look properly browned, not pale and timid.

Let the dump cake rest for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. This part is irritating when people are hovering with spoons, but it helps the peach filling settle a little. Serve it warm with vanilla ice cream if you have it. Lightly sweetened whipped cream is lovely too, and plain Greek yogurt gives it a tangy little edge that surprised me the first time. Cold milk on the side is perfectly fine. We don’t need to put on airs.

Variations

The peach version is the one I come back to. But blueberry pie filling works beautifully in this same setup, and mixed berry filling makes it darker, jammy, almost a little dramatic.

Fresh peaches can work if you have very ripe ones and some patience. You need to toss them with a little sugar and cornstarch first so they bake up with enough sweetness and body. I tried it once with peaches that looked gorgeous at the farm stand but were apparently determined to remain crunchy forever. The dessert tasted fine, but the texture was a little like eating warm fruit salad under cake crumbs. Not my finest hour.

I would not swap in a different cake mix unless you’re willing to accept that it becomes a different dessert. A white cake mix would probably be okay, though less buttery-tasting. Spice cake might be nice, maybe. But I’m a little suspicious of people who insist every recipe needs cinnamon. Sometimes peaches are allowed to taste like peaches, for heaven’s sake.

Storage & Reheating

If there’s any left—cover the dish and refrigerate it. It keeps well for about 3 to 4 days. The topping softens in the fridge, which isn’t terrible, just different. Honestly, I have eaten it cold out of the pan while looking for the coffee filters. I’m not proud of that, exactly. But I’m not ashamed either.

To reheat a serving, scoop it into a bowl and warm it in the microwave until it’s heated through. If you want to bring back a bit more of that crisp top, reheat it in the oven instead, though I rarely bother unless company is coming. A low oven for a little while does the job; I’m not going to give you an exact time because leftovers are never exactly the same amount, are they?

And here’s a small real-life note: don’t put ice cream directly on the entire pan unless you plan to finish it.

Final Notes

There are recipes you make because they are impressive, and then there are recipes you make because the day has been long, dinner was rushed, and a warm sweet thing in a bowl might make the room feel softer.

This is the second kind.

Make this when you need something easy and a little indulgent. Let it bubble. Let it rest, even if nobody wants to wait. Then put a scoop of ice cream on top and eat it before it melts into a puddle—though, frankly, that puddle is pretty darn good too.